Fund Liquidations Pressuring Food Stocks

The selling would have been milder if Midwest weather hadn't improved.

Updated Aug. 11, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

Updated Aug. 11, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

Credit Suisse

YOU NEED TO BE SOMETHING of a commodities trader, a currency trader, and a psychiatrist combined to trade food stocks these days. Funds are exiting the grain complex rapidly as the U.S. dollar strengthens, crude oil falls, and the weather in the Midwest improves.

We probably underestimated the degree to which commodity funds had been driving up the market earlier this year and the degree to which fund liquidation...